Stranger

Forty-seven

“How long do you give them?” Michaela asked from the passenger seat as we drove away from Sullivan.

“A few days before the symptoms become obvious.” I shifted the gearshift. “Then they’ll cull the ones they know are infected. Only the ones doing the killing will be infected themselves.”

She pushed her hair back from her eyes. “So why aren’t we infected?”

I shrugged. “Natural immunity.”

“I wish you could be so sure.”

“You’ve been exposed to the bug enough, and you haven’t been infected yet. Those people back in Sullivan managed by sheer chance to avoid contamination for so long because they were isolated from the rest of the world.”

“Do you think I introduced the bug to them?” she asked. “I may not be infected, but I might be a carrier.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. In fact, I’m certain they infected themselves.”

“How?”

“One thing the people of Sullivan ate plenty of were fresh fish. For months fish had been feeding on bodies that had been washed into the lake.” I looked at her. “It adds up, doesn’t it?”

“Agreed. But not everyone will be infected with Jumpy.”

“No, a few will survive. They’ll wander from place to place, scavenging food. But the town’s as good as dead now.”

“Greg?”

“Michaela?” I smiled.

“Slow down, boyfriend. Remember what we’ve got in the back.”

I glanced at the cases of dynamite stacked in the back of the Jeep. I eased off the gas. On this rutted road the boxes were hopping about in a way that was too lively for us to be comfortable with.

“So,” she said, “how do you use dynamite?”

“Search me, I haven’t a clue.” I shot her a smile. “We’ll figure out how one way or another.”

Her face broke into a slow grin. “Yeah, we’re Vikings now. We can do anything, right?”

“Right.”

We drove back the way we came, along roads that cut deep gullies through the forests. In the distance we caught glimpses of rivers and lakes. The afternoon sun had been buried behind a big, dark funeral mound of cloud. A flock of white birds glided along the valley to our right, over shattered houses and villages that lay bitched and broken with their living hearts torn out. Yeah, Valdiva. We’re Vikings now. Warriors of the wasteland. Lords of Chaos. We’d inherited a ruined planet.

Ahead of us by a few yards rode Tony, Ben and Zak, in a line of three, the bikes eating up mile after mile of road. I guessed they were taken by surprise by how easily we’d gotten hold of the dynamite in the end. Within thirty minutes of me shooting the bullhorn from Crowther’s hand the townspeople piled the cases of explosives outside the gate. Tony and Ben rode up in the Jeep and loaded it; then we were away in a swirl of dust with the Jumpy-raddled people of Sullivan watching us go. Only when I was five miles from the place did the muscle spasms ease in my stomach.

When I thought about it later, it all added up. I’d been downwind of them in the ditch. I’d smelled their aftershave. I’d smelled the infection, too.

Zak rode with the cowboy hat on his head, the brim flapping in the breeze. He grinned back at us. We’d be back at the cabins within the hour.

What happened next must have been fast. Only it seemed to roll in at me in slow motion. One minute there was open road, the banks of trees on either side of us. Then figures swarmed onto the road. Braking, I swerved to avoid them. I saw one aim a swing at me with a baseball bat. It smacked against the windshield. A white star appeared in the glass. Michaela shouted a warning. I swerved again, this time not to avoid the hornet but to use the car to smash his legs to crud.

I looked to my right to see Ben’s dirt bike in the grass at the side of the road, the wheels still spinning like fury. I braked hard. Zak and Tony wheeled the Harleys ’round and raced back toward the hornets. There were maybe twenty of them. Not a huge pack, but there might be more nearby. What’s more, they’d managed to topple Ben off the bike.

Zak and Tony, like old-time knights on horseback, charged the mob, the pair of them firing their sawedoff shotguns from the hip. The scattering buckshot dropped three or more of the bastards with every shell. I saw them go down kicking on the blacktop. Blood spurted from wounds in their faces.

I reversed hard. Smashing the legs of any that got in the way. One old girl went down with a screech beneath the back wheels.

“Greg, the dynamite!” Michaela shouted.

I looked ‚round. More hornets piled into the road from the forest. With sticks and iron bars they struck at the car. Some beat at the boxes of dynamite, sending a flurry of splinters into the air. I lurched the car forward. A stick caught me on the shoulder, but I kept powering away from the mob. I looked back again. Zak and Tony rode in a circle ’round Ben, back tires ripping up the sod into a green blizzard that filled the air. They were keeping the hornets at bay as Ben hoisted the bike upright. Thank God the engine still fired. I could see the exhaust hazing the air behind the muffler. Hornets tried to rush him, but the ever-circling Zak and Tony kept them back with a few well-aimed shotgun blasts. A moment later Ben climbed back on the dirt bike. With a twist of the throttle he wheelied right out of there, Zak and Tony following. Zak fired back as the hornets ran after them, turning one guy’s face into a mess the color of crushed strawberries.

“Damn, that was a close one,” I said to Michaela as I accelerated away. Then I glanced at her. Her head rolled to the rhythm of the wheels. Her eyes were shut. Streaming from the gash in the top of her head came what seemed to be a whole river of blood. Not a trickle, but a gush of blood that ran into the soft hollows of her eyes, down her cheeks like crimson tears, then down her throat to soak her T-shirt.

“Michaela?” I shook her shoulder as I drove. “ Michaela, can you hear me? Michaela!”

A rush of air tore the words from my mouth. “Michaela?” I kept calling her name. But as the red stained her chest my voice slowly died.